


Flesh

by applesofthemoon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Drug Use, Forced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Incest, M/M, Oral Sex, Prostitution, power bottom Ramsay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:07:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applesofthemoon/pseuds/applesofthemoon
Summary: Some people sell it, other people buy it, but the question is, who owns it? Your ass is cake and everybody wants a slice.





	1. I had a bullet with your name on it, click click

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know about anybody else, but I've always felt that a ship isn't really a ship without a solid prostitution AU. And Theon's adventures as a rent boy practically write themselves.
> 
> Naturally, I had to go and do things the hard way. 
> 
> This is one of those AUs that's firmly bookverse, except Ramsay is show!Ramsay. Not that I can stop you from picturing book!Ramsay if you'd rather. It would certainly make the idea of him doing sex work a whole lot funnier.
> 
> Also, the chapter titles are song lyrics because I'm that painfully trendy fic author who titles her chapters with song lyrics.

The hotel’s penthouse suite is huge, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sprawl of the city, but the sheer volume of people crammed into it makes it feel like a closet. You can barely see the windows, let alone the city beyond them. All you can see are bodies shifting against one another. Flesh upon flesh upon flesh, and beside you, Damon, doing lines off a glass coffee table.

When he sits up, you elbow him in the side, making the baggie stuffed into his jacket crinkle. “You know that’s not your fuckin’ lunchbox,” you say.

“Yeah, so? None of these fucks are biting.” Damon wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Look at ‘em. They’ve got their own shit. Prolly cut it on a silver platter.”

“Ben sees you’re short, he’s gonna ask for the money.”

“Let him ask. I’m not scared of Ben.”

He bends over the table and you roll your eyes, tapping a cigarette out of its pack. Your mom didn’t teach you much––and she never taught you anything on purpose––but she did teach you to steer clear of any buzz you can’t buy at a gas station. 

It takes a few clicks of your lighter to get the cigarette burning. You slot it between your lips and take a deep drag, hoping it’ll take the edge off your headache. The music they’re playing is killing you. It’s hip-hop, with rap vocals layered over a thumping beat, and it’s so loud Damon’s been shouting in your ear all night just to be heard. You blow smoke out through your mouth and draw it back into your nose, preferring its smell to the smell of booze and sweat. 

The party is a bachelor party, and the crowd is a bachelor-party crowd: heavily-cologned guys in polos and button-downs, all well past tipsy and enjoying the company of girls who can't tell them to fuck off. The groom, a woolly, thickset guy, is holding court on a couch adjacent to yours. Sara is in his lap, her halter top undone, and he's doing shots off her tits.

The music cuts out, leaving the penthouse stunningly quiet. You glance at the speakers on the marble-topped bar and see a kid in a navy-blue polo and jeans, taller than you are but not much older, plugging his phone into the dock. He has thick black hair that falls into his eyes, and he rakes it back with one hand as he swipes his thumb over his phone’s screen. A zippy EDM track pulses through the speakers and fills the room.

“The fuck?” The groom looks up and gives the kid the evil eye. “Are you fucking with me right now? Get that gay shit out of here.”

The kid hunches his shoulders. “Fuck you,” he says, and tries to slip off into the crowd.

The groom shoves Sara off of him and stands, jarring the coffee table with his knee. Damon rears up squawking with his bill jammed halfway up his nose, and you give him a slap in the back of the head. You watch as the groom puts the kid in a headlock and drags him along the bar, twisting and clawing. He squirms free only for the groom’s fist to connect with his face, making him stumble backward. 

“Little faggot,” the groom mutters. He rips the kid’s phone out of the dock. A minute later, the hip-hop music is back, the groom’s face is in Sara’s cleavage, and the kid is slinking off with his hand clapped to his mouth, blood seeping between his fingers.

You grind out your cigarette and get up. “Rams,” Damon says, grabbing at your shirtsleeve, “c’mon. You don’t wanna get involved in that.”

“You don’t know what I want,” you say, and shake him off.

You find the kid in a sleek chrome-and-glass bathroom, spitting blood into the sink. When he sees you in the mirror, he curses, startled. “Uh, d’you _mind_?”

Closing the door behind you, you take the kid’s chin in your hand and turn his jaw from side to side. He’s confused, but he’s swaying where he stands and you know he’s too fucked-up to stop you. There’s a tooth missing from the lower left side of his mouth. Blood wells in his bottom lip and drips down onto your thumb, dark red. 

You pop the plastic seal off one of the glasses sitting on the countertop and fill it with water from the sink. “Rinse,” you say, and he does.

You watch him, sucking the blood from your thumb. You’ve spent your share of time in bathrooms with drunk guys, and this one is better-looking than most, with his aquiline nose and deep-set eyes. The Rolex around his wrist is standard-issue rich boy, but the pair of red stones in his earlobes make you grin. _He’s not just a rich boy,_ you think. _He’s a little prince._

You don't tend to do much business at bachelor parties. Ben sends you and Damon along hoping you’ll move some product, not debauch a former frat brat during this, the straightest of all straight rituals. But something tells you tonight might be your lucky night.

“Rod’s such a dick,” the little prince complains, tonguing at the gap between his teeth. “Now I’ll look like a fuckin’ hockey player in his wedding pictures, and who’s Dad gonna blame for it?” He turns to you and grimaces. “I’m not always this much of a loser.”

“‘Course you’re not.” You run your tongue over your own teeth behind your lips, half-consciously mimicking him. “Is it true, what he said about you?”

“What?”

“Are you a faggot?”

Blood comes rushing up into his cheeks and suddenly you want to choke on his cock so bad you’re salivating. You push him against the wall and go to your knees before him. “Uh, I don’t––”

“Yes you do,” you say, undoing his jeans.

His cock fits nicely in your hand, not too little, not too much. It only takes a few strokes to get him hard. You comb your fingers through the curls at the base of his cock and wrap your lips around its head. The smell of him fills your nose, rich and earthy. You grope for his hand and bring it to the back of your head.

Your mouth slides slickly up and down his cock, your tongue teasing its underside. You glance up at him and wonder if he knows what you are, why you're here. _Probably not,_ you think; right now he barely seems to know how to breathe. You hum around his cock and smile when his hips jerk, his fingers twisting in your hair.

He _does_ know what you are, to the extent that he needs to. He knows that in this moment, you're the only other person in the world. You don’t have a Rolex or real jewels in your earlobes; you don’t even have a proper bed back home. But here and now, for at least a few seconds more, the little prince is _yours._

He spills down your throat, hissing through gritted teeth. Some of his cum falls from your lips with his softening cock, and you flick your tongue out to gather it back. He looks at you as if it pains him to watch your tongue disappear back into your mouth. 

He sighs and crumples to the bathroom floor, head lolling on one shoulder. His eyelids close, then open, then close again. You laugh when you realize he’s passed out with his cock still hanging out of his jeans. He looks much too precious to wake, so you decide to help yourself to your compensation. You could dig in his pockets for his wallet, or…

Gently, you unscrew his earrings, first one and then the other. You pop out your shitty black CZs and replace them with the red stones. In the mirror, you turn your head this way and that, watching the little prince’s jewelry catch the light. It makes you feel half a prince yourself.

––

On the ride home, while Damon dozes with his head on your shoulder, you roll down the window of the Escalade and let the cool wind batter your cheeks. The driver and your chaperone sit up front, the girls in the back. Outside, the city gives way to the suburbs and the suburbs to woodland, miles of black pine trees thrusting skyward like spears. 

The Escalade’s tires crunch over gravel as it turns off the Weeping Water Parkway, onto the nameless unpaved road that snakes through the wood toward the lumber mill. When you come to a stop, Damon stirs and mutters. You and he and the girls pile out into the yard, shielding your eyes from the motion-sensor lights mounted high on the walls of the shop where the wood is cut. Ben unlocks the doors and brings you inside. The path to the steep metal stairway is lined with heavy machinery, asleep beneath a blanket of shadow. Come dawn it’ll be rumbling and whirring, making the floor tremble beneath your feet, but right now it’s silent, stonelike.

At the top of the stairs, Ben touches the scanner with his forefinger and lets you into the loft. In the dark, you pick your way through the maze of mattresses to the one you call yours. Damon didn’t turn a trick at the party and he’s horny from the blow, so you let him ride you, let him straddle you and guide your cock into him with shaking fingers.

Damon kind of nauseates you, but you’re nice to him anyway. He’s all you’ve got now that Heke’s gone.

He came to you three months back, on a night not unlike this one. He crouched by your mattress and shook you awake. It was time, he said, time to do what you’d been talking about doing since you were kids. Back then, the door locked with a key code. Ben was careful never to let you see the numbers when he punched them in, but Heke had memorized the tones and worked the code out by listening. If you left now, he said, while everyone was asleep, you could get a few hours’ head start before anyone saw you were gone.

_Are you sure about this?_ you whispered.

_Fuck no,_ he said. _But I have to try._ He grabbed the back of your neck and bumped his forehead against yours, his breath hot in your face. _You wanna die here, Rams?_

You thought of your mom, wasting away at the end of a crack pipe. _No,_ you said.

You crept through the loft and down the stairs, treading lightly so they wouldn’t rattle. In the shop, Heke found a screwdriver. He jammed it into the padlock that secured the chain on the doors, but for all he worked, it wouldn’t budge. _Fuck,_ he hissed, drying his sweaty palms on his jeans.

You glanced sideways at the long wall of the shop, where a row of tall, narrow windows glowed in the moonlight. _A window,_ you said. _Let’s try a window._

The windows were high, so Heke had to climb onto your shoulders to reach one. Again and again he struck the glass with the screwdriver, so hard you swayed and nearly dropped him. _Hurry up,_ you said through clenched teeth, straining under his weight.

Then the screwdriver crashed through the glass and a pulsating shriek filled the air, making your ears buzz. Heke scrambled through the window and landed with a _thud_ on the other side. He must have cut himself on the broken glass, because you looked up and saw blood on the windowsill, bright as fire in the glare of the motion-sensor light. _Ramsay!_ Heke called, his voice tight with urgency. You hadn’t counted on the alarm. Now your only head start would be the time it took Ben to wake up and place a call. _Ramsay, c’mon!_

You backed away from the window, bits of glass tinkling beneath your feet. You reached the top of the stairs just as Ben came through the door, pulling a coat on over his ridiculous grandpa pajamas. _I tried to stop him,_ you said. _I was only trying to stop him._

Back in the loft, Damon dug his nails into your arm. _You were gonna run without me?_

_He was going to run without us,_ you said. _I tried to stop him._

Two days later, a couple of guys in jumpsuits showed up to replace the keypad with a fingerprint scanner, and that was that. You don't know what happened to Heke, but you don't think he got away. If he had, you'd have been on the hook until they found him, and you weren’t. No one asked you where he was going or how he meant to get there. No one––not even you or Damon––ever spoke his name again.

You dream about it sometimes. Not about Heke. You dream about the instant between the glass breaking and the alarm sounding, when gravity seemed to evaporate around you. You dream of weightlessness. You dream of freedom.

––

When you first met Domeric, you were ten and he was fourteen. Mr. Bolton had picked him up from his riding lesson and brought him up to the loft to wait while he met with Ben, but you didn’t know that at the time. You didn’t even know he was Mr. Bolton’s son. All you knew was that when you got home from school, some gangly kid in tall boots and tight pants was sitting on the couch in front of the TV, and he was in _your_ spot.

You groped in your backpack for a pencil and dropped it onto the floor. It rolled a little ways, then stopped at Dom’s feet. _Hey, is that yours?_ you asked.

When he reached down to pick the pencil up, you stomped on his fingers as hard as you could. He cried out and jerked upright. _Ramsay!_ Your mom swooped down on you, grabbing you by the arm. It was near the end for her, when she was so far gone she’d piss her pants and take hours to notice, but she sure as shit noticed you stepping out of line. _You be nice to Mr. Bolton’s boy._

_Why should I?_ you demanded. _He’s not better than me._ You fixed Dom with a cold stare. _You’re not better than me._

Mom dragged you onto her mattress and beat your ass until you cried, and you learned your lesson. Dom _was_ better than you, by every metric that mattered. He’ll always be better than you. But he doesn’t hold what you did against you. If anything, you suspect it gave him a little thrill. 

The morning after the bachelor party, you wake up before Damon does. Someone’s cut the lights on and you can see him lying face-down on the mattress beside yours, his pillow wet with drool. You can see the girls, too, flung across their mattresses in various states of undress, some still asleep, others up and smoking the day’s rations. You pull on gym shorts and a T-shirt, grab a glass of orange juice from the kitchen, and flop down on the couch to rewatch a taped episode of _Law and Order._

It’s hard to hear the show over the drone of the machinery from downstairs, but you know every line by heart; the loft’s not wired for cable, so you’ve been watching the same tapes since you were a kid. You’re mouthing the words of the title sequence into the rim of your glass when you hear someone coming up the stairs from the shop. They pause, negotiating with the scanner, and the door releases. Clouds of sawdust swirl into the loft, making your eyes and nostrils burn. 

With the sawdust come Dom and Mr. Bolton, shadowed by their bodyguards. Bolton owns the lumber mill, and the little operation hidden away above the shop. You’re told he’s got his fingers in a bunch of pies, though of course you’re unlikely ever to know just how many. He’s pretty hands-off, leaves the day-to-day stuff to Ben, but he makes sure the money’s going where it’s supposed to. He shows up once a week or so to go over the books, and he usually brings Dom with him. Now that Dom’s a big boy, he doesn’t have to wait on the couch anymore. He ducks into Ben’s office with Bolton and the goons, and the door clicks shut.

Some minutes later, it opens again. Dom wanders over with his hands in his pockets, playing it cool. “Hey, Ramsay.”

“Hey, Dom.” You look up at him, the shining future of Bolton Lumber, Ass, and Blow. He’s immaculately groomed and immaculately dressed, in a black suit with a pink pocket square and shoes that are probably cleaner than the glass you’re drinking from, but his eyes are a little boy’s eyes, baby blue. “Where’s Papa Bear?”

“Still in with Ben. Said he wanted a word in private.”

“Yeah?” You raise an eyebrow. “Think they’re keeping secrets from you?”

“No,” Dom says, frowning.

“Right, of course not. I’m sure they’re just planning your birthday party.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Why are you always such a dick?”

“Because you love it.” You flash him a grin and swing your legs down off the couch. “C’mere, will you? Sit with me. Give me some good news.” When he sits, you put your feet in his lap. “You dating anyone?”

“No,” he says.

“Fucking anyone?” 

He snorts and shakes his head. 

“I said _good news,_ Jesus. You know you have to use this thing––” you poke his crotch with a toe, making a flush creep up his neck “––or it’ll shrivel up and fall off.”

“Domeric.”

Suddenly Bolton’s standing over you, regarding you with flat fishy eyes. They’re not the sort of eyes you like looking at you for too long, so you fold your legs and let Dom up. He heels like a well-trained dog, and there’s nothing for you to do but watch him go.

You think about letting him fuck you, about popping the buttons of his crisp white shirt and rumpling his neatly-styled hair, about feeling him tremble as you bring him inside you. Too bad it’ll never happen. Bolton’s sampled his own merchandise a time or two, or so the girls say, but you know he’d have you stuffed and mounted if he caught Dom doing the same.

Not ten minutes after Dom and Bolton leave, Ben pokes his head out of his office. “Ramsay,” he says. “Phone’s for you.”

You sit up, blinking. “For me?”

“Yes, you. Come on, don’t keep him waiting.”

You turn off the TV and go into Ben’s office, where his prepaid flip phone sits open on the desk. “Yeah?” you say as you put the phone to your ear. 

“Did you steal my earrings?”

The corners of your mouth curl into a smile. “No.”

“Oh,” the little prince says, momentarily at a loss. “I––really? I’m sure I had them when you––when we––”

“I didn’t _steal_ them,” you say. “I took them. As payment.” 

“Oh,” he says again. There's disappointment in his voice, hard as he tries to hide it. There’s no way he got Ben’s business number without getting an idea of the business Ben’s in, but he was hoping against hope, and it’s actually kind of sweet. He’s like a little kid who still believes in Santa Claus, if Santa Claus gave out blowjobs at penthouse parties. “Well.” He clears his throat. “Red’s not my color, anyway.”

Your smile widens. _That's a good boy._ “Sure looked like your color when you were bleeding all over the fuckin’ place.”

He laughs sheepishly. “So can we––can I see you again?”

“Depends on how big your allowance is.”

“Should I go out and buy more jewelry, or do you take cash too?”

“Sure do. Or you can swipe your credit card between my ass cheeks.” 

You end the call with a date of sorts for next weekend and a smile still on your lips, but Ben quashes it quick enough. “You know I’ll need those earrings, Ramsay,” he says, not ungently. He looks you in the eye and extends his hand.

And yeah, you knew. Everything you earn goes to Ben, to pay down your debt, and your debt gets bigger all the time. With every carton of orange juice you empty, every pack of cigarettes you smoke, every night you spend under this roof, it gets bigger. Sometimes you wonder if Bolton actually keeps track of it, or if he just takes it for granted that you’ll be his forever.

“Can’t I just hang onto them?” you ask. “Borrow them, like.”

Ben shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

Ben looks like somebody’s grandpa and acts like it most of the time, but he’s not senile yet. He knows how the game is played, and he knows the house wins every round. You could say no, sure. You could say no and give him a sock in the mouth for his trouble. _And then what?_ Then Bolton and his goons come for you. Then you find out what happened to Heke.

You unscrew the earrings and throw them onto Ben’s desk. As you shove past him, you hock a glob of spit into his outstretched hand.


	2. But I don't feel the pain 'cause I'm a pro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ramsay gets fucked in more ways than one. Theon is fucked too; he just doesn't know it yet.

You turned your first trick at fifteen. The girls were on the prowl at a club in the city, and as usual, you and Damon were with them, hugging a wall and scanning the crowd for people who might be looking for a fix. Heke was there too, but he was older than you, had started tricking sooner, and he’d already gone off with some guy.

Heke wasn’t much to look at, with his ratlike face and limp, colorless hair, but he taught you that looks aren't what matter in your line of work. _It’s all in the eyes,_ he said. _You look at them like you already_ know _they want to fuck you, and suddenly they do._

You don’t remember the guy, whether he was young or old, gentle or rough. You just remember that he took you to the bathroom and fucked you with your ass on the sink and your legs around his waist, each thrust making the mirror bang against the wall. When it was over, Heke bought you a shot with the wristband he’d swiped from his trick. 

In the four years since, you’ve taken so much dick you barely feel it anymore, and here you are about to do it again. Your arm hangs out the window of the Escalade, a cigarette smoldering between your fingers. For once it’s just you and the driver, headed for a steakhouse in the nice part of town. You’re wearing the best shirt you own and a pair of slacks Ben lent you when you told him where the little prince wanted to meet. None of it fits well or feels right, but you console yourself with the knowledge that the most important part of the evening will be the part when your clothes come off.

The driver drops you off at the curb and you push through the revolving door, trying to act like you belong here. The place isn’t napkin-swan fancy, but it’s a far cry from the bags of lukewarm fast food Ben brings home for you and Damon and the girls. The little prince is sitting in a booth with his head bent over his phone, wearing a pinstriped button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows.

You clear your throat, and he looks up and smiles. “Hey.”

It’s only been a week since the bachelor party, but he’s had time to get his teeth fixed. They’re straight and white and infuriating, somehow. You can’t help feeling like he asked you here to mock you, even though that’s almost certainly not the case. 

“Hey,” you reply, easing into the booth. The waiter comes to take your drink orders, and once he’s gone, you come straight out with it. “You know you don’t have to wine and dine me, right? That’s kinda the idea of hiring a pro.”

The little prince studies you. “I thought the idea was that as long as I pay you, we do whatever I want.”

He’s got you there. You give a dry laugh and open your menu. You don’t know what to order, so you ask him what’s good. The waiter comes and goes, and you say, “So let me guess. College kid?”

“Community college,” he says, grimacing. “I got into some trouble in high school, so my parents wanted to keep me close.”

You cock an eyebrow. “Trouble?”

“I, uh...I played a prank on a friend’s family. It went wrong.” He looks away. A graceful conversationalist would take the hint and change the subject, but if you have to be uncomfortable, it seems only right that he should be, too. “People got hurt.” His eyes are a stormy grey, and when they return to you, you wonder if he knows you’re enjoying this. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“I can tell,” you say.

You eat without really tasting the food and follow the little prince home in the Escalade. His silver Lexus leads you out of the city, through the suburbs, and down a long, narrow road illuminated only by your headlights. On either side of you lie the tall grasses and shallow ponds of marshland, resolving briefly out of the darkness only to vanish as you pass.

Eventually, the road forks and rises onto a bluff, where an old manor house overlooks a fog-cloaked bay. The Lexus crawls to a stop beside a dry fountain in the center of a circular driveway. Your driver parks the Escalade and you step out into the quiet night, into a sharp salt wind that ruffles your hair. The house looms over you, all in stone, like a castle. _A castle for a prince,_ you think. 

Upstairs, on a four-poster bed that creaks as you tumble onto it, you mash your mouth against the little prince’s, tasting the mint he took from the hostess stand at the restaurant. His hands work clumsily at the buttons of his shirt, and you help him get it open and off before you free yourself from your own clothes. In a pocket of Ben’s slacks are a couple of rubbers, the pre-lubed kind that slide around inside the foil. You open a packet with your teeth, duck between the little prince’s legs, and close your lips around the head of his cock, pushing the condom onto it with your tongue.

You straddle his hips and lower yourself onto him, feeling as much as hearing the groan that rolls through his body and breaks on his lips. Fully seated, you pause to admire him: his open mouth, his closed eyes, the pretty dark sweep of his eyelashes across each cheek. When he tries to actually fuck you, you lock your thighs tightly around him, and smile at his surprise. “Did I say you could move?” you ask, spidering your fingers up his chest.

You rock forward, then back, and the little prince’s body heaves with the force of his exhale. You ride his cock at a steady bobbing clip, making no sound but the faint wet _schlick_ of flesh against latex-sheathed flesh. His head falls backward and you stare down at his neck, sleek and white, curved like an archer’s bow.

It's not long before his muscles pull taut, his nostrils flaring in quick, short breaths. You grab his face and press your forehead against his. “Look at me,” you say in a throaty whisper. “I want to see your face when you come inside me.”

He does as he’s told, holding your gaze for as long as he can before his hips buck and his eyes snap shut. “Oh,” he breathes, his brow creasing as if in concern, “ _oh,_ ” and you feel his cock throb, feel his cum rush into the tip of the condom.

You don’t want to look away from his face. You don’t want to leave this room, this bed, this moment. You don’t want to forget how good it felt, watching him come in you. _For_ you. 

You try to ignore it on the ride back to the mill, all through the city and up the Weeping Water, but by the time you get up to the loft you can’t stand it anymore. You drop onto Damon’s mattress and wake him by shoving your cock into his mouth. He squirms at first, startled, but soon gives in, lets you fuck his throat with a fistful of his hair. In the dark, you don’t have to close your eyes to imagine that it’s not him.

––

Weeks pass and everything is the same as it’s always been, until suddenly it’s not.

But before then, you spend some time getting to know the little prince. Well, getting to know his dick. Much to your relief, he doesn’t ask you on another date. He’s content to fuck you in his bedroom in his parents’ house, his long, lean body nestled between your thighs, his fingers balled in the sheets.

One night, when he finishes and rolls off of you, panting, you prop yourself up on your elbows and survey the room. It has high ceilings and tall windows, admitting columns of marble moonlight. The house is so old it doesn’t have closets, but a wardrobe stands across from the bed. From one of its doors hangs a black tuxedo beneath a layer of plastic. 

“Nice monkey suit,” you say.

He looks up, pushing his hair back from his face. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “That’s my tux from Rod’s wedding. Just got it back from the cleaner’s.”

“You should put it on for me.”

He gropes for a pillow and drags it under his head. “Why don’t _you_ put it on?” he mumbles into the pillow.

You know you could get him into it if you really wanted to. You’ve trained him well these past few weeks, and he would do just about anything for you if you asked with a smile and a squeeze of his cock. But something beckons you to the wardrobe, where the moonlight makes the tux seem to glow in its plastic. It crinkles softly as you take the tux down and unwrap it.

You slip on just the shirt and jacket, letting them hang undone from your shoulders. The fabric is cool and heavy, with a faint chemical smell clinging to its fibers. You look at yourself in the mirror above the bureau. The shirt and jacket are a little long for you, stopping at your thighs instead of your hips, but otherwise it’s not a bad fit.

Damon’s always been the pretty one, with his fair hair and delicate features, but you don’t think you’re too hard on the eyes yourself. Your skin is flushed with exertion, and your hair is starting to curl from the moisture of your sweat. In the moonlight, your eyes are a blue so pale they almost look silver. As they pass over your reflection, you feel a shiver of déjà vu, and you try to figure out where you've seen this image before. _Dom,_ you think suddenly. You look like Dom.

From behind you comes the rustle of sheets and a snort of laughter. “Oh my God, I wasn’t _serious._ ”

Outside, your driver flashes his headlights, letting you know it’s time to head home. Back to the mill, back to Ben and Damon and the girls, back to a life where the closest you’ll get to a suit is fantasizing about tearing one off of Domeric fucking Bolton. You shrug off the jacket and shirt and put on your own clothes while the little prince counts out your money.

He tries to kiss you when he hands you the bills, but you turn your face to the side so his lips brush your jaw instead. “C’mon,” he says, pulling at your T-shirt. You push him off. “ _Ramsay._ ”

You grab the back of his neck and sink your teeth into his lower lip. His blood bubbles onto your tongue, hot and sweet. 

––

Bolton walks into the loft like it disgusts him. That’s fair enough; the place is pretty disgusting, and the people who inhabit it no less so. But it's kind of like the time you ripped out a handful of Alison’s hair after she called Damon a fairy princess. Yeah, he’s a little shit and you hate him, but he's _yours_ to hate.

Bolton disappears into Ben’s office, where the atmosphere is less offensive. Shortly afterward, Ben emerges, with an expression on his face that you can’t quite analyze. “Ramsay,” he says, “Mr. Bolton would like to speak with you. Privately.”

 _What does Bolton want with me?_ Somehow, you doubt he’s going to name you Employee of the Month. You can’t think of anything you’d like to do less than go into that office, but you don’t have a choice. You pass between the goons posted at either side of Ben’s office door. Only their eyes follow you inside. 

Bolton sits at Ben’s desk in a black suit and a pink silk tie, doing something on his phone. You pull up a chair and sit, drumming your fingers on your thigh. In the shop below you, a saw shrieks. “Ramsay,” Bolton says, and how _honored_ you feel, knowing he knows your name. “How are you?”

“Uh. Good.” As good as it gets, anyway.

“Good.” He puts his phone away. “I apologize for the delay. I’ve been meaning to meet with you for some time now.”

“About..?”

Bolton sits back in Ben’s desk chair. He doesn’t smile––you don’t think you’ve ever seen him smile––but there’s amusement in his eyes, a cool, dry amusement that leaves you uneasy. “Did you know there are security cameras in the shop?”

“What?”

“There are security cameras in the shop,” he repeats. “In case of a break-in.” He raises an eyebrow. “Or a break-out.”

Something cold plunges into your guts and corkscrews through to your bowels, making you feel like you're about to shit ice water all over Ben’s office floor. You sit up straight as a rod, your fingers curled tightly around the arms of the chair. “I––”

“I reviewed the footage from the night your friend tried to leave us. I saw you come downstairs with him. I saw you help him out the window.” Excuses and defenses race through your mind, but before you can pull one out, Bolton is lifting a hand, brushing away your transgression as he might brush away a mosquito. “I’m not here to punish you. It was quite resourceful, what you did that night.”

That...wasn’t what you expected to hear. You squint at him, not yet relaxing your grip on the chair. “Yeah?”

“Yes. And the world is full of opportunities for those who are resourceful enough to take advantage of them.” He picks up a silver letter opener lying on Ben’s desk planner and taps it against his palm, testing its weight. “I’d like you to start working more closely with Domeric and I. It seems to me that your talents are wasted at this level of my organization.”

The first thing you think when he says that word–– _closely_ ––is that he's going to bend you over the desk and fuck you. The thought brings with it a weird sense of relief. Then again, maybe it's not that weird. Fucking, you understand. It's familiar territory. If he would just cut the cryptic shit and give you something you can work with––something like his cock––this would be so much easier. 

Too easy. It doesn't happen, and you realize it's not going to; it’s not what he wants. _Then what_ does _he want?_ “So you’re...what?” you venture. “ _Promoting_ me?” 

“In a manner of speaking.” You laugh, a little breathlessly, and Bolton’s lips twist at one corner. “Do you find that amusing?” 

_Amusing?_ You find it fucking surreal. “I just––you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel, huh?”

“I assure you, Ramsay, I do not _scrape._ I know there is potential in you.”

“How?”

“Well,” he says, drawing his thumb along the edge of the letter opener, “I have reason to believe you’re my blood.”

You blink. _Blood,_ he said, as in _family,_ as in...he’s joking, right? It’s not funny, but he has to be joking. 

“Of course, it's never been properly confirmed,” he adds, “but the look of you is confirmation enough for me. Perhaps you've noticed that you and Domeric resemble one another.”

You think of that night in the little prince’s room, when you tried on the shirt and jacket of his tuxedo. You looked at yourself in the mirror and thought...you thought…

Here's what you thought: you thought your dad was just some trick, and your mom never told you otherwise. The idea of him, nebulous as it was, meant as little to you as your own tricks. Whoever he was, he hadn't wanted you. He would never know about you. And if he did, what then? Would he be glad to meet you? Would he be _proud_ of you? His son, the whore?

Bolton is watching you, curious to see what you'll do. He's not joking, but he _is_ playing with you, and somehow it makes you feel dirtier than you’d feel if he _had_ bent you over the desk and fucked you. “How long have you known?” you ask, hating the way your voice rasps. At least it's not shaking.

“Why, ever since your mother gave birth around the right time.”

“And you were content to let me _rot_ here all these years?”

“Your mother––”

“––would have traded me for a rock and called you a sucker,” you say through clenched teeth.

“Very well,” he says, conceding easily; he didn't really expect you to buy some sob story about your mom’s rights or wishes. “I was content to let Ben provide for you until I could determine your worth. I would hardly say you were left to rot.”

 _You were content to let me ride dick while your sweet Domeric was riding horses. You were content to let me haggle over the price of my flesh while you bought his cars and suits. You were content to let me do things that would make your fucking tie curl if you thought he had done them._ You try to laugh, but what comes out is more of a bark. “You’re an asshole.”

He shrugs. “I’m a Bolton. As are you, if you so choose.”

“If I choose.” Again, you try to laugh. This time, your throat constricts, and for a moment you can't make any sound at all. “I have a choice.”

“Certainly. If you wish to live your life on your back, it’s not for me to stop you. All I can do is give you a chance to get to your feet.” Bolton puts down the letter opener, reaches into his pants pocket, and sets something on the desk in front of you. When he withdraws his hand, you see the little prince’s earrings. “You may have these, if you like,” he says. “They're not worth liquidating. You could buy yourself something much nicer with the money you’d make working with me.”

You stare at the earrings. They look like hard candy, like something you could suck and crunch between your teeth. They’re no different than they were when Ben took them from you, when you wanted so badly to keep them, but now they repulse you. You don't know if it's because Bolton said they were cheap, or because he cheapened them–– _giving_ them to you, as if they weren’t yours to begin with. As if you hadn't earned them.

Bolton stands and straightens his tie. “Ben has been apprised of the situation. When you're ready––” _when,_ he says, not _if,_ the smug piece of shit “––you need only say the word.”


	3. If we go down then we go down together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the immortal words of 3OH!3, never trust a ho.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was an exercise in self-indulgence, but through it I've discovered that I have the biggest boner for Ramsay and social class angst, which is a character thread from both book!Ramsay and show!Ramsay that I'm glad I was able to pull through here. I feel like I read a lot of Ramsay fic that wants sadism to be his _only_ character trait, instead of just, y'know, a big one, and I wanted to try for a fresh take. Hopefully it was at least somewhat successful.

You and Damon and Heke always knew yourselves as accidents, and not the happy kind. _Bastards_ , they used to call you: children born out of wedlock. Now a bastard is someone contemptible; it means the same thing as _prick_ or _jerk. Little bastard,_ that was Mom’s favorite nickname for you, next to _little shit._

You can’t stop thinking about Bolton fucking her. He would have been methodical about it, clinical, like a doctor conducting an exam. His hands would have been cold. You wonder if she fought back, or if she was too strung-out to care what he did to her. She might even have wanted it. 

You ride out to the little prince’s house around eleven, your temple pressed to the window of the Escalade. When the little prince comes to the door, you grab a handful of his shirt and kiss him until he’s easing you backward, gasping for air. “Good to see you too,” he says, with a grin that puts the crescent moon to shame.

He stands aside to let you into the house, but you pull him outside instead. You drag him down the front steps and into the yard, licking and sucking his jaw and neck. “Can’t wait,” you breathe. “I want you to fuck me right here, in the grass, in the dirt.”

His eyes flick toward the driveway, where the Escalade waits. “But––”

“What, you’re worried about him?” You laugh and grope him through his jeans, making his cock jump. “He’s just a driver. Might as well be a chimp.”

“And my parents––if they wake up––look outside––”

His stalling frustrates you, and your frustration balloons quickly into anger, sudden and sharp like a stomachache. “You’re pathetic.” You step back and give him a shove in the chest. “You're the most pathetic little prick I've ever met.”

He frowns at you, confused. His confusion pisses you off even more than his hesitation, so you shove him again, harder. “Look at you. You’re so full of shit. _I got in trouble,_ you said. _People got hurt,_ you said. Yeah, I bet. What’d you do, stay out past curfew? Keep Mommy and Daddy waiting up?”

He shoves you back. “Fuck you!”

“Your earrings are trash, did you know that? I’m surprised you can afford to fuck me!”

He throws himself at you and knocks you on your back, momentarily sweeping the air from your lungs. By the time you can breathe again, he’s jerking your jeans down to your ankles, slamming his cock into you. He pants as he fucks you, a hank of your hair wrapped tightly around his hand. There’s pain, but it’s a sweet pain, an exhilarating pain, and you arch your back to meet his thrusts. It takes every ounce of willpower you have to keep from coming for him, from emptying your boiling core onto his stomach.

Afterward, you lie side-by-side in the yard, watching gauzy strips of cloud scud across the moon. You feel the cool grass tickling your bare skin, and the little prince’s cum melting down your inner thighs. It occurs to you that this is the first time he’s fucked you without a condom––the first time you’ve really _felt_ each other. 

He sighs and stretches, his arms unfurling above his head. “Hey,” he says, “why is it you never come when I fuck you?”

You shrug. “Guess you don’t fuck me very well.”

He snorts like it doesn’t matter, but insecurity darkens his eyes, and seeing that, knowing you put it there, is better than any orgasm he could give you. You wonder if this is what it’s like to fall in love.

––

“So whose balls did you have to gargle to get away with staying in tonight?” Damon stuffs his legs into a pair of skinny jeans and lies down on his mattress to pull them up. “Was it Ben? I didn’t think he could still get it up, but I guess you don’t have to to take the boys for a swim.” He grunts as he buttons the jeans at his waist. “Or maybe it was Bolton. Everybody knows those buttoned-up types love to get loose in the sack.”

“If you don’t shut up,” you tell him, “I’m going to take a shit on your bed while you’re gone.”

“Yeah, you do that,” he says, sitting up. “If Bolton’s cock hasn't jammed all your shit back up into your stomach.”

The girls don’t get on your case like Damon does, but a few of them throw you dirty looks as Ben hustles them out the door. He’ll deliver them to their chaperone in the yard, then take off to run errands. He likes to do it on Saturday nights, when the stores aren’t busy. The mill is half an hour from civilization in any direction, so you expect to be alone for awhile.

It’s a rarity, being alone in the loft. You should be spending tonight the way you spend every weekend night, and some weeknights too: in the center of a sweaty crowd, dizzy from the heat and the noise, waiting to be dragged into a bathroom or an alcove and skewered by some anonymous cock. But Ben’s let you be since Bolton dropped his bomb. You’re in limbo––no longer what you were, not yet what Bolton wants you to be. You’re floating, but of course, it’s like floating in a bathtub. There’s only so far you can go.

You know it doesn't really matter what you do. You can be Bolton’s son or you can be his merchandise, but either way, he’ll own you. It'll be him who defines you, who decides your destiny, until the day he drops dead. Maybe even after.

You pick at a loose thread on your bedsheets, thinking about the mattress beneath you. You were born on this mattress––not these sheets, thank fuck, but this mattress. You shared it with Mom until she started going downhill, getting vicious night sweats that drenched her pajamas and yours, and when she died, you took it back. That night, Heke crept under your covers and put his hands in your pajama pants. You didn’t particularly want his hands in your pajama pants, but you’d been sleeping with Damon the past six months and Mom all your life before that, so it was nice not to be alone just yet.

_You ever wonder what happens when we die?_ you murmured as Heke ground his cock against your hipbone.

He huffed, fluttering your hair. _You ever wonder what happens if we live?_

You don’t have to take a shit, but you made a promise to Damon, so you get up, loosen the drawstring on your gym shorts, and proceed to piss all over his bedsheets. Midstream, you hear footsteps on the stairs from the shop. Whose footsteps, you wonder? No way Ben’s back already. You put your dick away and watch the door.

“Ramsay.” Dom’s as surprised to see you as you are to see him. He’s not wearing a suit tonight, just slacks and a button-down with the top button undone. A single dark curl forms a perfect C on his forehead. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“I live here,” you say. “What’s your excuse?”

“Oh, I’m just here to collect.” He produces a keyring from his pants pocket and wrinkles his nose as he flips through the keys. “Does it smell like piss in here to you?”

“Is that what that is? I thought you were using a new cologne.”

Dom unlocks Ben’s office, and you follow him inside. He crouches to open the safe, a squat black cube with a combination lock. Inside are stacks of cash representing the week’s earnings––yours, Damon’s, and the girls’. You sit on Ben’s desk and watch Dom load the money into a drawstring bag. 

If being alone in the loft is rare, being alone in the loft with Dom is a singularity. You understand that you’ve been dealt an exceptionally good hand, and you’ll have to play it very carefully. “Did your dad tell you about our little talk?” you say casually.

“You talked?” Dom asks, shutting the safe with a _clunk._ “What about?”

“About my future with his organization. He wants to, uh, bump me up the food chain.”

“Yeah?” Dom straightens to face you. “Are you going to take him up on it?”

“I don’t know.” You sit back on the desk, creating a neat triangle of space between your legs. Dom hovers just beyond your knees, so close you can smell him. It's a fresh, piney smell, probably his shampoo, with the faintest note of nervous sweat. “I might miss tricking.”

He makes a little choked noise, something between a scoff and a swallow. “Why?”

“Well, maybe I like it,” you say, your voice a slow drip, like honey. “Maybe I like being stretched and twisted like a rubber band. Maybe I like a nice thick cock, the way it pulses in my hand, the way it feels rubbing along my asscrack before it pushes inside me. Maybe I like being entered. Filled. _Fucked._ ” Dom’s cheeks are glowing red, and it makes his blue eyes look even bluer. You smile. “You wanna know why people like you look down on people like me?” 

He shakes his head furiously. “I don’t look down on you.”

“It’s because you’re afraid,” you say. “All that raw sexuality, it _scares_ you. It’s a threat to your order––the sterile little boxes you’d like to stick everything in.” 

His eyes flick toward the door, but his body lurches closer to the desk. You reach out and undo the second button of his shirt. “Ramsay,” he warns.

“Mmm?”

You slip another button out of its hole and walk your fingers up his chest. His skin is hot, so hot he could be running a fever. His heart hammers against his ribcage, kissing your fingertips with each thump. “My dad doesn’t want me to...to…”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” _It won’t hurt you, either._

Dom’s lips are cool and dry, and they actually quiver against yours for a moment before he gives in and kisses you back. Then it’s his body that’s shaking, and not with nerves, with _want._ He wants you so fucking bad. He kisses you hungrily, almost frantically, hiking up your T-shirt, working your shorts down your thighs. Pressed against him, you can feel he’s hard, but that’s not all you feel. He’s got a gun on him, a pistol, hidden in a holster at his waist. You can’t help but laugh. “I can’t believe you’re fucking _strapped._ ”

He shoves his hair back from his face. “Well, my dad says if I’m going to do business without a bodyguard––”

“Do me a favor, Dom,” you say, lying back on Ben’s desk. “Let’s not talk about your dad anymore.”

At this point, you don’t particularly care if he suits up, but Dom is Dom, so he digs in his wallet for a rubber and rolls it onto his cock before he buries himself in your ass. As soon as he’s caught his breath, he pulls out and rams into you again, using both hands to brace himself on the desk. “Oh God,” he moans. “Oh fuck.”

As he fucks you, his hips pumping in time with his breathing, you think about Bolton fucking your mom. It must have been here that he did it. You can’t see him getting down and dirty on her mattress in the main room, and he certainly wouldn’t have taken her home with him. So it must have been here. It must have been just like this. You can see her in your mind's eye, her body invaded and conquered, just like yours.

But you're not going to end up like her, and not just because Dom can’t knock you up. You have something she didn’t.

_You’re an asshole,_ you said.

_I’m a Bolton,_ he told you. _As are you..._

You wrap your legs around Dom’s waist and reach up to grab his shirt, jerking him down on top of you so that his ragged breaths break over your face. His cock drives deep inside you, almost touching the base of your spine. He can’t move much like this, so you rock up into him––once, twice, three times and he shudders as he comes, his mouth open in a silent cry.

_...if you so choose._

Ben’s silver letter opener––the one Bolton was playing with when you met here a few days ago––appears in your peripheral vision. You don’t pick it up so much as attract it, like a magnet; your hand opens and suddenly it’s there, cool and heavy and _right._ You suppose you could grab Dom’s gun and put a bullet through his eye, but that would be too quick, too easy. Too impersonal, him being your brother and all. Your _blood,_ as Bolton would say. 

Funny, but Bolton blood isn't much different from anyone else’s. It's warm and red and when it sprays your lips, it tastes the way pennies smell. Dom claws at your arms, at the desk, at the letter opener protruding from his throat, but succeeds only in spreading the blood around. His cock is still inside you, soft and wet.

When he tries to pull away, to stand up, you lock your arm around his neck. “Shh,” you say. “Don’t spoil it.”

He takes his sweet time dying, jerking and gurgling on top of you for a good three or four minutes before he’s finally still, before you lift his head by a hank of hair and see that his pretty eyes are glassed over, staring at nothing. By then, your T-shirt is so bloody it sticks to your chest. You sit up and Dom slides out of and off of you, hitting the floor with a _thud._

_Poor Dom,_ you think as you gaze down at his body, looking downright pathetic with the full condom dangling from his limp dick. It wasn’t him you meant to punish.

Then again, maybe it was. Maybe he deserved to die, because he never had to wonder what would happen if he lived. 

You go out into the main room, change into a clean shirt, and swap your gym shorts for jeans. Back in Ben’s office, Dom donates generously to your cause: his keys, his pistol, and the drawstring bag with the week's collection inside. You know you should probably zip him up in return, but the idea of Ben finding him like this is just too funny. Besides, it’s not like a little indignity is going to hurt him now. 

You go through Ben’s desk and come up with a pocketknife, sharper than the letter opener. Holding the pocketknife between your teeth, you sit on Dom’s right arm, brace his wrist with one hand, and bend his index finger backward until you hear a _snap._ Then you take the pocketknife and begin to saw just above the knuckle. It takes you longer than it took Dom to blow his load, but eventually, you have what you need: your ticket out of here.

In the main room, you lick your lips and press the pad of Dom’s finger to the scanner by the door. It hesitates a moment, as if trying to decide whose side to take–-yours or Bolton’s? Then a little light turns from red to green, and the door releases with a _hiss._

You go down the steps, unlock the tall shop doors, and step outside, squinting as the motion-sensor light comes to life. There's a black Bentley parked in the yard, facing away from you. You can see the silhouette of Dom’s driver in the front seat. “Home, sir?” he asks when you slide into the back.

No one’s ever called you _sir_ before, even by accident. You nudge Dom’s pistol into the space between the driver’s seat and its headrest, letting the driver feel its muzzle against his neck. 

You give him an address and he peels out of the yard, his hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. He takes the Weeping Water to the highway, bypassing the city. You want to roll down the window, to see if the air tastes different now that it's yours to breathe, not just something Bolton’s loaning you, fuel for his machine, but you know better than to take your focus off the driver. You have to content yourself with the distant sparkle of the city’s lights, seen sidelong from the corner of one eye. 

It’s a long drive out to the bay, and by the time you have the driver pull over on the marsh road, your hands are cramping on the pistol’s grip. It’s a relief to finally fire it. The driver pitches forward onto the dashboard, blood soaking into the collar of his shirt. You tuck the pistol into the waistband of your jeans, get out of the car, and lean against the door to smoke a cigarette, hoping it'll stop your hands from shaking. Not that you’re afraid or anything. No, you’re excited. Exhilarated. 

As you walk up the bluff, the old manor house comes slowly into view, rising like a dark moon. The real moon is high and round, and its light blanches the bay side of the house. You scoop up a handful of pebbles from the ground and fling them at a third-story window, hearing them hit the glass one by one: _clink, clink, clink._

You're just starting to lose your patience when the sash goes up and out pops the little prince’s head. His hair is disheveled, his eyes narrowed against the moonlight. “Ramsay?” he says, looking at you like he’s never seen you before.

“Let me in,” you call up to him.

“What? I wasn’t supposed to see you tonight.”

“I'm a surprise,” you say, grinning widely. “C’mon, let me in.”

His face disappears from the window, and you go around to the front door. As you wait, you remember a legend you once heard. Maybe it was Heke who told you, or someone at school when you were a kid. It had to do with vampires. They could fly and kill with a bite, but they couldn’t enter a home unless they were invited. _Unless you let one in._

The little prince opens the door, barefoot in his pajamas. Before he can open his mouth to ask what you're doing here, you grab a handful of his hair, jerk his head back, and press the muzzle of the gun to his chin. “Wh––what the fuck is this?” he stammers.

“A Glock, maybe,” you say, shrugging. “I don't exactly have papers for it, y’know?”

“Are you…” He’s frozen, pale as ice. “Was that a fucking _joke?_ ” 

“What about this situation makes you think I'm joking?” you say. “We’re running away. You and me. Right now.”

“Okay, listen to me, I can't just––”

You pull back the slide on the pistol and he nearly jumps out of his skin. “I will actually kill you if I have to. You understand that, right?”

You're not sure if you're bluffing or not––it would be such a _waste_ to kill him now, before you've had any real fun––but the little prince decides not to risk it. You escort him upstairs to change out of his pajamas and pack a few things, and to his credit, he doesn't whimper and whine the whole time. He's stiff, jittery, but that's understandable. Cute, even.

While you wait, the gun trained on the back of his head, you glance at the mirror above the bureau and realize that you forgot to wipe the blood off your face. It's dry now, a dusting of brown flecks on your chin and cheeks. You think about Dom, his flesh cooling on the scuffed laminate floor of Ben’s office, the silver letter opener still lodged in his neck. You wonder if Ben’s found him yet.

“Hurry up,” you say, and the little prince hurries. It's a good feeling, being obeyed. Almost magical. You feel like a fucking wizard.

In the driveway, the little prince seems surprised when you direct him to his Lexus. “You want me to drive?”

“What did you think I wanted you for, your charm?” you say. “I never learned.”

You watch from the passenger seat as he starts the car and flicks on the headlights, the dash display creating severe shadows on his nose and cheekbones. He takes you down the bluff and onto the road, where the Bentley sits wreathed in mist. You have him pull up behind it and push it off the road, into the marsh. Huge bubbles form and split as the earth buckles and the car sinks, slowly, so slowly.

“What’s in there?” the little prince asks, his voice a dry rattle.

“Don't worry about it.”

“Ramsay, _what’s in there?_ ”

You don't know why he wants to know. It's not like it'll make him feel any better. “You need to relax, little prince,” you say mildly. “Just relax and everything will be fine.”

He stares at you, round-eyed. “What did you call me?” he says. “My name is––” 

You draw back your arm and clock him in the face with the pistol. “I don't fucking care.”

He drives, sniveling, his nose leaking blood into a handful of tissues. Beyond the bluff, the road follows the curve of the bay. You don’t let yourself look out at the water, but you do lower the window, with the hand that’s not on the gun, and the night wind buffets your face and blows back your hair. It makes you feel like you’ve been zapped by a defibrillator, shocked back to life. Or maybe just _to life_ , for the first time.

You lift the gun and the little prince flinches, expecting to be hit again. But the blow doesn’t come. Instead, you drag the pistol’s cold muzzle lightly down his cheek, moving it as you would move your hand in a caress, and you smile at him. 

You don’t know where you’re going or what you’ll do when you get there, but you know two things––the only two things that matter. He belongs to you. And you don’t belong to anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
